Corned Beef, Cabbage, Cooking Up A Storm

I really am way behind on all the food I've been making and not sharing here.  I do not know how so many people seem to get pics, videos, posts etc done.  I get the photos done as I've always been taking photos of my food, long before that was "a thing."  But then the whole organizing and posting- whew that breaks more of a sweat than all the prep work and cutting!

So I'm writing this while I will have to just look at the photos I have, then go back and edit them later, then hopefully add them to this post at some point.  

So I've been looking up corned beef and cabbage recipes now for a good number of weeks. We had some corned beef in the freezer.  I'd obtained the organic carrots and onions, got the potatoes, cabbage, some of the fresh herbs talked about.  Finally got the apple cider...figured I'd prep the veggies last night and cook the corned beef overnight.  It worked out nicely with all those spices and whatnot.   Was kind of gross to handle though.  For most of my life I was able to avoid touching raw meat :P

So I get the apple cider in there, adding the rosemary, sage, thyme.  Some dry mustard, peppercorns, bay leaves.  If I haven't mentioned, I like cross referencing many recipes and if they all have some common ingredients, I figure those are good ingredients to use.  I expected a spice packet to come with the corned beef but it did not exist somehow.    Put some garlic in both fresh and granulated.  Onion.   So that cooks overnight and turns out great.  Parsley....

Then I keep that liquid and put in the veggies for a quick to do-  did 15 minutes as recommended-  I think that was too much especially for the carrots.  The potatoes came out great.  The cabbage was ok but still limp....so not entirely sure what to make of all that.  Not sure if the carrots were more submerged and that was the issue or what have you.  

I used different kinds of potatoes- mostly the small-medium ones-  and I LOVE the colored ones, especially the purple. I just love everything about it.  So that bag came with a mix of potatoes, and the small golden ones came homogeneous.  All gosh darn delicious.  

So as the person that I am cooking for does not like cooked carrots-  I decided to mash up the potatoes and add more garlic, parsley, basil I think and dill, along with some awesome European butter- this was Irish as it was nice to match that with such a dish as this....  It's looking like I didn't get a photo of the potato mash so perhaps I can go do that even though it's now in containers and won't look as nice.... so... said person thought it was sweet potatoes which they also don't like- but I'm hoping to get them to eat it tomorrow since there ARE potatoes in there and I DID get colored potatoes and I have in the past been able to get Vitamixed carrots into food without issue.  It's a good thing I am getting good at this now-  it's like dealing with a toddler who turns their nose up at vegetables.  If I weren't on the computer I'd insert eye rolling emoji here.

Then since I had recently found some nice beef in the freezer I put some of those in this great broth that'd been accumulating all day, and that got cooked and it was soooo tender and yummy and I made some more yummyness for that- side note we have a big storm coming in so I figure we'll be set on that front.    Into that went that great Irish butter, salt, parsley, basil, dill, lots of garlic, then some more garlic- and oh my goodness it's pretty much like the best steak I've had.  The kind where I sit back and nearly drool and how much that chef knows what they're doing.  Now it appears that I am that chef!

So once that was done-- and I'd been informed it could have been done with a much cheaper cut of meat it seems, so maybe that'll be something to try for the future.  So I have all this glorious broth and have learned that if it goes in the freezer, it may never see the light of day again- and we have a hungry belly in the house and this will be a great opportunity.  So we have maybe a quart and a half or so of this broth maybe 5 cups... and thankfully I remember I have a bag of organic carrots and organic celery that had become frozen from being in the garage fridge which is an underachieving fridge- or maybe didn't get the memo of what it means to be a fridge.  Or maybe it's overachieving since  it seems to try to be a freezer- either way the things froze so I wouldn't have as easy of a time using it to accompany hummus.  So this means it's time to blend it in the Vitamix to be used for something like rice, or soup etc....so now we're up to around 2 quarts of liquid though hard to judge with all the foam....  so in goes the 2 cups of brown rice that's been rinsed and waiting.  Then we have about 1 cup of lentils, and 1 cup of split peas, rinsed and in they go.   I added some more garlic and salt....and if I recall- I came to think of putting in the carrots in the first place because the broth had some kind of taste that I wasn't entirely in love with.  And one thing I have learned is to make the rice taste right- the liquid needs to be something that you wouldn't mind eating/drinking as soup!  

It's cooking now and I can hear it releasing though it's making more noise than usual, but I"m thinking this now instead of just being merely boring rice- it's nearly a meal in itself- much more nutrition plus fiber and protein!  What more could you ask for!   We shall see soon how this last part turns out!